Diverse Ramblings

White fuzz

Jenny has been back home for two and a half days since being neutered, and she's a lot better. She's eating and drinking (although at first she turned her nose up at the new specially-for-neutered-cats food that the vet's nurse told me to mix in with her normal food).

She's also getting a bit more active - she's spent lots of time curled up on me this weekend, but she also made it to some of her favourite haunts, e.g. on top of the modem.

It has occured to me that perhaps this is not such as good thing for the modem since (a) she now weighs more than five kilos, and (b) the thing might overheat. I suppose the best thing would be to build some sort of a cage over it.

Jenny also likes to sit on top of the monitor, and the stack of books over there is to help her because she was scrambling up there anyway and I had visions of her busting her stitches.

You can see where part of her side was shaved - white fuzz has already started to grow back. Mike thinks she looks hilarious, but I don't mention it because I don't want the poor kitty to feel self-conscious. Miskina.

Poor little neutered kitten. Mwa.

When I picked up Jennyanydots from the vet's, reeking of medicine, she was still asleep but became more alert by the time we got home.

She was really groggy so I got a fleece baby blanket, cuddled her in it, and was following the nurse's instructions to give her lots and lots of fsied.

Jenny wasn't having any of that though. After about five minutes she tried to get off my lap, and when I lowered her to the floor she buggered off down the corridor. I followed her because I was worried - she was nearly falling over every few steps! I carried her to where she could choose whether to head for her kitty litter box, or for her food and water, because I wasn't sure what she wanted (not allowed food and water till tomorrow anyway).

But no, she uncurled herself and continued to lurch down the corridor.

Was she maybe heading for the toilet to drink from it? I had already closed the bathroom door so she wouldn't be able to get at water.

Hah, she staggered right past the bathroom into the bedroom, where she collapsed on a pile of dirty laundry.

OK, I thought, I shall get a book and lie down next to her to keep her company.

Then the phone rang, and when I got back Jenny had disappeared... after a quick search I found her under the bed. She couldn't have made it clearer that she wanted me to Leave. Her. Alone.

OK, I can take a hint. I often feel that way myself.

So I got a couple more fleece baby blankets (I got four from Tal-Lira last year, I love them) and I put them under the bed so that she could make herself more comfortable and hopefully keep warm. Who knows, maybe she'll join me later on. Miskina.

Kidney of a horse, liver of a cat.

Today Michael and I went to Chef's Choice for the first time.

I think it is hilarious that people here say the 'Ch' of 'Chef' just like the 'Ch' of 'Choice', and also the 's' is silent. Now it sounds funny to my ears to use the 'proper' pronunciation.

About the shop - I have never seen so much meat before in my life.

I have also never seen bulls' hearts, livers, instestines, kidneys and testicles (fascinatingly disgusting) out on display.

There weren't any horse kidneys, but there were entire pig heads in plastic bags. At least that's what Mike said they were, I wasn't about to investigate more closely.

The really, truly great thing about Chef's Choice is that the prices really are great - the quality of the meat looks good, and the prices are cheaper than from supermarkets or even the local butchers. When you have a mortgage to pay, you really appreciate such things...

Besides various bits of cow, horse, bull, rabbit, calf, chicken, pig and sea-dwelling animals, there's also non-meat products available, like cheese, biscuits, cereal, herbs and spices, etc, so we took the opportunity to stock up on frozen oven chips and angel delight. After an hour in Chef's Choice, I started to feel vaguely ill from the smell of dead animals, but as my mother often says, it's probably psychosomatic.

Right know Mike is in the kitchen being all primal, revelling in the goryness of the two thick steaks that we're having for supper as a treat. I've left him to it (he's marinating them in Cisk), and I don't want to see any more raw meat for at least three days, but I'm looking forward to supper.

Peter and the Wolf

Some friends of mine are involved in the upcoming production of Peter and the Wolf at the Manoel Theatre. If you've got kiddies, this is a great opportunity to expose them to some culture in a child-friendly atmosphere! This is by the same people who put on The Magic Flute last year, which I enjoyed muchly, so I've no reservations in recommending Peter and the Wolf.

The performance is only 40 minutes long so even squirming kiddies won't get fed up, and everything from the set to the location of the musicians to the dancing is all as kid-friendly as possible and the whole point is to give children a positive classical music experience. It won't be boring, promise!

Below is the flyer and the blurb from the theatre's website (I can't link directly to it, unfortunately). You can book by email or phone, or buy your tickets directly online.

My cat is in heat.

Easter weekend was nice, especially since St. Joseph's fell two days before Good Friday so that was two Public Holidays in the same week.

Unfortunately, I didn't get much sleep because the whole long weekend coincinded with our kitten's latest cycle of estrus, i.e. she was in heat.

Having never owned a cat before, I had no idea how horrible it is to share living space with a female feline in heat. So far she's had two or three cycles, and at first we didn't know what was going on, but we soon figured it out.

Jenny's usual whine is annoying enough (it's an all-purpose whine, used for "give me food/attention"), but during estrus she takes her vocalisations to a whole new level. Louder, for one thing, with vibrating overtones that are probably the feline equivalent of a husky drivetime voice.

The rest of Jenny's behaviour would make even a shameless hussy blush. She becomes even more affectionate than usual, and likes to rub her head against anything available, but she also goes into what Mike calls "Ferrari mode". She crouches down low on all fours, sticks her bum up in the air (or in your face if you're lying down), and, just to make things absolutely clear, moves her tail out of the way to the side.

Shameless.

During estrus, Jenny spends all day (and all night) yowling what I assume is "I want to have sex. Now. Someone please have sex with me.", and since we live in a flat I had to think of a way to keep her quiet at night so that the neighbours don't sic the police on us.

The only thing that seems to work is to let her sleep in the bed with me, which means that I just spent five consecutive nights with five and a half kilos of cat sprawled on various parts of my body. At least she didn't try to sleep on my face. Since I am a light sleeper at the best of times, I didn't get more than half-an-hour of unbroken sleep. Aaaagrh. And don't tell me this is good training for having kids, I don't want to know.

Jenny's cycles seems be around five days of feeling horny followed by about a week of normal behaviour. I checked on the Internet, and was horrified to read that this could go on until September. You have got to be kidding me. Little Sis warned us to get Jenny spayed before she matured, but we were lazy and didn't get around to it. If we had known then what it would be like...

On Saturday, after a whole day of Jenny's vocalisations, I was a nervous, sleep-deprived, tearful wreck. Michael, alarmed, has made an appointment this week for Jenny to be spayed - better for me (more sleep, less stress), better for Jenny (likewise less stress, as apparently unsatisfied cats feel stress), and better for Mike (doesn't have to deal with a stressed wife or a stressed cat).

Jenny won't feel very happy for a couple of days afterwards but I'll give her lots of TLC, which she likes.

Then when she's recovered, we're going to get her a little brother from the SPCA. Hopefully she will have fun playing with him, because I think she gets lonely when we're both at work. I'm also hoping that she won't be the sort of big sister that leads her siblings into mischief (because I was exactly that sort of big sister, and put my poor mother through a lot).

What's for supper? Frozen shoulder? (mike's latest joke)

One of the benefits of being married to a nurse is free healthcare, in the comfort of your own home.

The disadvantage is way too much information about whatever it is that might be ailing you.

I woke up yesterday morning with a sore shoulder. Well it doesn't hurt all the time, only if I reach out and try to grasp something. So Mike was going on about frozen shoulder (which sounds funny until you look it up) and nerve involvement (which sounds scary to begin with so I didn't look it up). Finally he decided that it wasn't frozen shoulder, probably just a bit stiff from being over-enthusiastic with an elastic exercise band that I bought a few days ago. Yeah, me doing physical exercise, hope you didn't just fall off your chair.

I wish I had a photo of me standing at the sink, washing a bowl using my left arm while Mike is giving me physio on my right. What can I say, I'm a woman, I multitask.

Today my shoulder feels a bit worse and I am annoyed because it hurts to reach out to the keyboard and the mouse. I guess this would be a good time to stop using an armchair and replace it with the build-it-yourself office chair that my parents gave me for my birthday last month. (my parents thought I would enjoy putting it together, and they were right, it's just like Meccano on a larger scale, but with really bad instructions).

Building that chair took a nurse, a laboratory analyst and a mechanical engineer way too much time to put together, mostly because people kept saying "let me see it, I'm sure I know how it fits together!". Well we finally figured it out, and it's a very nice chair, but I've never used it because I like watching DVDs on the PC, curled up in this armchair (yet another donated piece, honestly, we have yet to buy a stick of furniture for this house).

Hmmm, maybe I can fit both the armchair and the office chair near the desk, and switch between them...

Children. So violent.

On Wednesday nights, at church, I teach a children's class, for kids aged 3 to 10. I enjoy it because although I do actually occasionally teach them stuff, there's lots of time for chatting and being silly, which I think kids need. Don't worry, they get taught their doctrine during Sunday School on Sunday mornings.

The very first thing I do, once I have got the kids to stop bouncing off the walls and sit down around the table, is to ask them what they've been doing lately. Following is an edited (for brevity) version of our coversation yesterday, involving two seven-year-old girls and two four-year-old boys. Little Boy #1 always speaks with a lisp, and Little Boy #2 switches his on and off, to great effect.

Little Girl #2: I'm glad that it's Easter holidays!
Me: Ooh yes, and this morning my sister and I went shopping and we bought chocolate Easter eggs for my family.
Little Boy #1: What abowt us?
Me: What about you?
Little Boy #1: Did you buy us Eastew eggs?
Me: No.
Little Boy #1: *waving hands in air* Why not?
Me: Because it would cost too much money for me to buy for everyone. Can you imagine if Michael told me "We need to buy milk" and I would have to tell him that there was no money left because I spent it all on Easter eggs for everyone? What do you think he would do?
Little Girl #1: I think he would spank you!
Little Girl #2: I think he would wrap you round and round and round and round with tape!
Little Boy #1: I think he would bounce you up to da ceiwing an' den let you faww on da floor!
Little Boy #2: I think he would, uh, wowl you up inna ball, an' den, an' den, an' den he would squash you fwat, an' den, an' den, an' den he would give you to da man to buy da milk wif!
Little Boy #1: I would bounce you up to whew da astwonauts live
Little Girl #1: *interpreting* He means Jupiter
Little Boy #1: An' den let you fawl on da floor!
Me: *slightly alarmed at all this violence aimed at my person* Ok, ok, what shall we pray for today?

Always something worth celebrating

Today I wore green in honour of St. Patrick's day (my step-great-grandfather was Irish, you know), but I was unable to get hold of any Guinness for us to celebrate with tonight, so the raising of glasses has been postponed until such point as I can lay my hands on some.

However the festivities aren't entirely cancelled - instead tonight we celebrated Pi day (slightly belatedly) with some help from Maypole. Heheheh.

Delightful

A couple of minutes ago, I heard Michael rummaging around in a cupboard.

Me: *suspiciously* What are you doing?
Mike: *grunts*
Me: Mike!
Mike: *innocently* Nothing, I'm just tidying up and I'm looking for the allen key for my drill.
Me: OK.

A few minutes later, I hear him using the drill, and, fearing that he was doing something crazy, I jumped up and tracked him down in the kitchen, where he was doing this:

You see, I introduced him to the wonders of Angel Delight last month, but in the interim he somehow managed to break our hand-held blender. Today he decided he wanted to make icecream using Angel Delight and icecream mix, so with practical ingenuity he bolted the whisk to his drill and had at it.

After I yelled at him for using a filthy, dirty, dust-covered drill to cook with, he assured me that he had wiped the drill down beforehand and that what I was seeing was encrusted dust/gypsum/plaster that wasn't going to come off any time soon.

Fine.

Mollified, I am rather looking forward to dessert.

Here's to a quiet weekend

Duluri - even if you don't observe the event yourself, it will still make you... dolorous... if you attempt to drive from anywhere in Malta to anywhere else in Malta that evening. We were invited to friends last night and twice we had to reverse and turn around because of the faithful clogging the streets.

Oh well we were only a little bit late and we had a great time. After an evening featuring much chatting, smothered pork (reference to the method of serving, not the method of slaughtering), and trading of funny youtube clips, we came away with two books (for me), four slightly-expired cans of beer (for Michael to cook with), and season two of the The Office on DVD (for both of us to veg out in front of). Oh, and a promise of another evening in the near future to be dedicated to playing Settlers of Catan.

And after night like this, you go home thinking to yourself, why don't I do this more often?

Mike and I will start being all grown-up and inviting friends over as soon as we buy some chairs, because currently we are still using the two that my father-in-law lent us. He very nicely has never commented on how our cat is gradually ripping all the foam padding off the seats. We bought her a really nice scratching post from PAVI, but no, it's the seats of the borrowed chairs that she strops her nails on.

We went to PAVI again today.

They had some catnip in stock.

This promises for an interesting evening.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7...

I have fulfilled my civic duty and exercised my right to vote.

There was a small but steady trickle of people heading in and out of the primary school just before 6pm, and things seemed quite calm. There was a small crowd of people clustered together across the road, I assume they were observers of some kind, and they seemed quite cheerful.

This year, Michael and I voted for opposing parties for the first time, which is what happens when you marry a floater I suppose. At first this put a strain on our relationship, but then we agreed to disagree and have spent the last few days having civilised discussions about politics and occasionally making good-natured jibes.

Mike is such a gentleman that he even offered to drive me to my post tal-votazzjoni this afternoon since it was raining - although on the way he tried to convince me that voting had been postponed until tomorrow, and that the correct way to write a "1" on the ballot paper was to make it look like a "7"...

Now, like the rest of the country, we wait for the results. It's going to be a long night at the counting hall tonight (even longer for those who have been up since the early hours of today). I imagine there will be lots of checking-of-mobile-phones during church tomorrow!

Either way, here's hoping that no-one does anything stupid and that no-one gets hurt.

Day of Reflection

So, by electoral law, today is a day of reflection prior to the general election tomorrow, which means that the media is not supposed to carry content that could influence someone's vote. Although (I suppose) blogs don't fall under this law, the bloggers are taking a break too. Well, most of them. Except the newest one, lol.

I used part of my day of reflection to prepare properly for tomorrow, you know, trying to be a good citizen and all that. I googled the candidates running in my district, decided on the order in which I wanted to vote for them, and looked up the location of my post tal-votazzjoni in the Maze. (I tried Google Maps but it didn't work).

So I'm all set.

Here's to a pleasant weekend :-)

Five days to go

The promises of yesterday are the taxes of today. William Lyon MacKenzie

There are Maltese bloggers with clever and interesting things to say about politics. I am not one of them. But, when politics spills over into my daily life, as it occasionally must, I too venture into the foray. (sorry, been listening to too much flowery rhetoric lately)

I am a floating voter - I am not loyal to any particular party and therefore my vote is up for grabs.

At every election, I make a decision about who to vote for, and this is based on past performance, the present situation, and promises for the future. I try to approach with an open mind.

I have a brain. I have been trained to think logically, to assess, compare and conclude. I am not impressed by the mass meetings (and the people honking their car horns on a Sunday afternoon make me want to curse whatever party they are honking for). I am not impressed by grown men calling each other names - would I really want to put such childish and immature people in a position where they make choices affecting me?

Neither am I impressed by clearly flawed proposals.

One that we have heard much about is the reception class idea. There are a whole slew of drawbacks and not a lot of pluses. But what really annoys me about this proposal is that, if anyone was really serious about improving the primary and secondary education in this country, then they would attack the real problem, which is the Junior Lyceum system. This is the cause of so much pressure and stress on young children that anyone who really cared would address this, not propose a reception class.

Another is the reduction of the surcharge. I feel insulted by this proposal. The price of oil is going UP and they want to reduce the surcharge? This is an attempt to manipulate the gullible, and I resent it. If the price of oil is going up, someone still has to pay for it. If the surcharge is reduced, the money is just going to come from somewhere else. And that somewhere else is going to lead straight back into my wallet. I would rather keep the surcharge (where I can keep an eye on it) than have, for instance, income tax raised again.

The Nationalist manifesto contains a lot of inspiring prose. A lot of it is just waffle, but at least it's available in English, unlike the Labour manifesto (do they just not want English-speaking votes?). I did download the Labour manifesto too, and started to read it with the best of intentions, but by page 21 my eyes started to cross so I stopped. Next time, if they want me to read it, they can provide me with an English translation. I did like the pretty pictures though, and I'm so glad they toned down their usual red to a nice soothing purple for the campaign. Clever marketing.

Reading through the Nationalist manifesto leaves me thinking, if they're removing/reducing all these taxes and increasing spending in so many areas, then where is the money going to come from? There are two possible ways - one is outside investment, and the other is to decrease wasteful spending. When are we going to see the civil service (the very expensive civil service) become accountable? When are the Government departments going to become efficient? Nationalist or Labour, I suppose it doesn't matter. There are too many voters in the civil service.

Not only am I not impressed with most of the proposals (especially since many would not be implemented anyway), I also don't see what I want. Jacques says he would vote for anyone who would reform the electoral system. I'm more self-centred, I'll vote for anyone who will give me what I really want - to be able to get to work consistently on time and with dry feet. For this to happen, I need a reliable bus service and proper water drainage for the roads. As it is, the realisation of my daily dream depends on whether the octogenarian is driving the bus today (if, indeed, a bus comes AT ALL), and of course on the amount of rainfall. In many streets all over Malta, we end up with rivers three, four or even five feet wide running along the pavements. I'm no athlete, and widths greater than four feet usually leave me spending the day with wet feet and a foul temper.

Alternattiva Demokratika, as part of their electoral campaign, have called for "the liberalisation of the bus service". Aha, but as a Maltese citizen over the age of seven, I am not to be won over so easily. I don't want a liberalised bus service. I want a reliable bus service. The latter will not necessarily follow from the former.

To be dry and on time, do I ask too much? Sadly, many of the noble proposals in the manifestos will not be realised. Those that are attempted will be hampered by corruption, inefficiency and just plain incompetence. Such is the reality of politics. I sigh a world-weary sigh: *sigh*. (oh no, I think I'm getting all dramatic again)

It's disappointing how hard it is to have a civilised conversation about politics in this country. So many otherwise-rational people quickly fall back on name-calling and generalisations when I dare to disagree with them. I have had friends with whom I very much disagree with about fundamental issues but we could still get together for fun and value eachother as people notwithstanding differences of opinion. Funnily enough, these people tend to be foreigners.

I think that besides the name-callers (with whom it is impossible to have a proper discussion) I find myself most frustrated with those who disagree with a party's policies (or, worse, don't even know what the policies are), but still say that they will vote for that party "because I always have, just like my parents always have, and I always will, because it's my party". I can understand people being loyal to a party, but I do think that they should at least have one reason for it. One of my best friends is extremely loyal to one party, but I can respect that because he can give you a list as long as his arm as to why he supports that party, and a list as long as his other arm as to why he will never vote for the other.

I am so fed up of this electoral campaign, things are just degenerating the longer it goes on. I feel embarrassed for Malta as a whole given some of the behaviour we are seeing from our potential leaders and their followers. Roll on Saturday, I just want to get this over with.

Catch-22

This evening, I try to send an SMS only to get one in reply saying that I'm out of credit. Which is annoying.

Before, when we had the Lira, if my account had less than Lm1 in it, I got a voice message informing me whenever I make a phone call, and I used that as an early-warning system and made sure I topped up in one way or another before I ran out of credit.

The thing is, I made a very brief phone call this afternoon, so brief that there must have been less than one Euro in my account, and I didn't get any voice message. Sigh.

So here I am, shops are closed and I am bla credit and in need of communication.

Aha, thinks I - I will top up online, wonderful are the miracles of modern technology. Only it's been a while (since I usually top up with Lm20 and it lasts me ages) so I've forgotten my new password and keep trying to log in with my old one (I forgot that the site made me change it a while ago).

No problem, there's a password retrieval option, fantastic.

Only to use it, you have to send an SMS to a particular number - and this SMS is not free.

So I have no credit, and need credit to get credit.

Urgh.

I ended up using my landline to make the phonecall, and then when I finally remembered that I had a new password and tried to log in to the website again, I got a message that my account has been blocked.

Wonderful.

Thanks, Go Mobile, for nothing.